0:00

This is

0:02

a Rooster Teeth production. June

0:07

8th, 1983. Revolution

0:10

Airways Flight 8, a Lockheed L-188C with 15 people

0:13

on board, is

0:16

en route from Cold Bay, Alaska to

0:18

Seattle, Washington. The 10 passengers

0:21

are mostly hunters and anglers, and they're

0:23

joined by five crew members. Shortly after

0:25

takeoff, the pilots notice an odd vibration.

0:28

The flight engineer leaves the cockpit to visually

0:30

check the engines and sees nothing out of the ordinary.

0:32

A short time later, a flight attendant enters the cockpit

0:35

to discuss the vibration, as it has increased

0:37

in intensity. When she leaves the cockpit

0:39

and returns to the cabin, she looks out the window,

0:42

and to her horror, she sees the propeller

0:44

from engine number four detach, go

0:46

forward from the engine, then veer to the left

0:48

and strike the fuselage, damaging the flight controls.

0:51

The impact tears a hole eight feet wide

0:53

into the bottom of the cabin, causing explosive

0:56

decompression. The rapid change in air pressure

0:58

and temperature creates a heavy fog, obscuring

1:01

vision and starving the cabin of oxygen. What

1:03

could have caused this terrifying mechanical failure? Did

1:05

the crew manage an emergency landing under these conditions?

1:08

Find

1:08

out on this episode of Black Box Down.

1:14

Hello everyone, welcome to Black Box Down. It's Gus and Chris. Hello,

1:16

Chris. Hi, Gus. Here with another episode.

1:19

I like this one because if for no other reason, I like the name

1:21

Cold Bay, Alaska.

1:22

It's like, you know what you're getting with that town. That is a good

1:25

name. Yeah,

1:29

it sounds like a horror movie. Like you look out the window

1:31

and then the propeller comes off. I

1:33

picture it something like you would see in a movie or like,

1:36

like when you're on Final Destination or something and you're like, oh,

1:38

that would never happen. But it did.

1:40

It's like, huh, what's that weird noise? And then you look out and just,

1:44

the flight, we'll get into it in a bit, but the flight attendant,

1:46

when she saw it happen, she was afraid the propeller was going to

1:48

come and hit her and kill her. Because

1:50

it detached and then came in the

1:52

direction she was standing. Oh, that's terrifying.

1:56

Right. Yeah, it went under her and created

1:58

the hole at the bottom of the.

1:59

the fuselage of the plane. So yeah,

2:02

luckily it went in gravity, pulled it down

2:04

a little bit, so it did not come straight

2:06

to the left and hit her. Wow.

2:08

It's a really interesting, because I wanted, this

2:11

has been one of those episodes I've wanted to do for

2:13

a long time because it sounds really dramatic. I'm

2:15

gonna be honest with you, there's not a lot to it, but

2:20

it's just like the idea of a propeller coming off

2:22

and

2:23

hitting the fuselage is,

2:25

like you said, it's so dramatic, it seems like something

2:28

out of a movie. Plus you got Cold Bay Alaska

2:30

going on.

2:31

Yeah, that great name. I

2:34

think I'd buy salmon from there. I bet you

2:36

can. You know what? I'm gonna look right

2:38

now, Chris. It just seems

2:40

like Cold Bay Alaska salmon,

2:43

the coldest waters with the best

2:45

salmon. It looks like they do have salmon

2:47

fishing there. It looks like they've got,

2:49

ooh yeah, the legendary fishing in Cold

2:51

Bay and the local streams and river is some of the last

2:54

untouched world-class salmon.

2:56

I'm looking at

2:58

an outfit or place where you can go up

3:01

there and go fishing and charter a boat and

3:03

stuff. It's expensive. Let's go Gus,

3:05

let's go. Let's get some salmon from Cold Bay. You

3:07

fly us. Before we get salmon

3:09

from Cold Bay, I do wanna remind everyone to give us a follow

3:11

on social media at Black Box Down Pod, Facebook,

3:14

Instagram, and Twitter. Believe it or not, even though

3:16

this, well, I don't wanna give a spoiler. You're

3:18

gonna wanna check out the social media. I'm gonna tell you

3:20

what's gonna be in there later.

3:22

I assume it's booking information for

3:24

our salmon fishing tour. Use

3:26

code Cold Bay. Anyway,

3:31

how do I do it? Let's get back on track here.

3:33

It's founded in 1946, based

3:35

out of Anchorage, Alaska, service nonstop

3:38

flights between Cold Bay, obviously

3:40

in Alaska, and Seattle Tacoma, Seattle

3:42

Tacoma Airport in Washington State, flying

3:44

the Lockheed L-188 Electra.

3:47

This is an older plane. I'm gonna get

3:49

that out of the way right now. Like you were trying

3:51

to picture it, picture like a photo

3:54

taken in black and white of a four

3:57

engine propeller plane, like something you would

3:59

expect to see in. in

4:00

the 50s or the 60s, kind of like at

4:02

the dawn of the jet age. Is it 1983?

4:05

How old of a plane was it then?

4:07

So the plane itself was

4:10

delivered initially in 1959. So

4:14

it was like 24. Am I

4:16

doing that math right? 24 years old at that point.

4:18

Yeah. So it's at this point, it'd

4:20

be real old. Yeah,

4:22

it was an old plane.

4:24

And I just say that because I know I like to try

4:26

to give people an idea of what kind of plane we're dealing with. And this

4:28

is not one most likely none of our

4:30

listeners have ever flown on a plane like this. It's

4:33

pretty old. And the Electra was the

4:35

backbone of revolution airways from

4:38

the late 60s until the Boeing 727

4:41

jet joined the fleet years

4:43

later. So this was a plane that

4:45

they flew quite a bit. The airline

4:47

was founded by Bob Reeve after a strike

4:49

by sailors on steamships operating between Seattle

4:52

and Anchorage.

4:53

So there was a strike going on with the ships.

4:55

And so Bob Reeve was like, you know what? I'm

4:57

going to start an airline. Let's

5:00

use planes instead. The revolutionary

5:02

ceased operations at the end of 2000 after

5:05

facing increased competition and high fuel prices

5:08

with only one Lockheed Electra and one

5:10

Boeing 727 in service at that time. They

5:12

were around for quite a bit between 1946 and 2000. It's 54

5:15

years. That's a long run for an airline,

5:18

especially one that's so so

5:20

niche as this one. I bet they ran a lot of salmon.

5:23

I bet they made a lot of money. Flying

5:25

salmon out of Colby.

5:27

Yeah. And we will too, Gus.

5:29

We will too, Chris. We'll do it one day,

5:31

I swear. So

5:33

this particular flight revolution airways flight

5:36

eight was crewed by Captain James Gibson,

5:38

who was 54 years old, had 5,700 hours flying experience

5:42

flying Electra's 39

5:44

year old first officer, Gary Lintner,

5:46

and 45 year old flight engineer

5:48

Gerald Moose Lauren. It's an older plane,

5:51

so they had three people in the cockpit. They needed an

5:53

engineer as well.

5:54

And like I mentioned at the very beginning, the engineer

5:56

leaves the cockpit to go take a look at the engines.

5:58

Anyway, this. This specific

6:01

Electra was tail number 1968 Romeo.

6:05

It had flown approximately 33,000 hours in service at

6:08

the time of this accident. It had a lot of hours

6:10

on it.

6:11

And it was sold to Reeves Illusion after

6:13

initially being sold to Qantas in 1959 and

6:16

served other airlines, including Air New Zealand

6:19

and the California Air Motive Corporation.

6:21

So it started in Australia and made its way across

6:23

the Pacific Ocean, stopped in New Zealand,

6:25

stopped in California, and then made its way up to Alaska.

6:28

The flight left Cold Bay at 1.42 p.m. local time with

6:32

clear skies and a noticeable lack

6:34

of turbulence. Normally that

6:37

area, that part of Alaska, can be pretty

6:39

turbulent because of the Aleutian Mountains and Pacific

6:42

winds. This day and this takeoff

6:44

stood out in people's minds because it was a very calm

6:47

day, no turbulence. During cruise climb,

6:49

the air crew noted unusual vibration

6:52

and they were unable to determine the cause.

6:55

So while climbing from flight

6:57

level 190 to flight level 250, so between 19,000

6:59

and 25,000 feet, the

7:02

flight engineer left the cockpit to

7:04

go visually check the aft engines, but

7:07

couldn't really see anything. Nothing seemed unusual

7:09

to him. So when he visually

7:11

checks them, how do they

7:14

do that? Is there like a hatch

7:16

that they look through or is he looking out the window or what?

7:18

He's looking out the passenger windows.

7:21

Okay, so it's not like there's like a

7:23

special hatch that he can

7:25

like check them on. It's just

7:27

a, okay. I'm going off the top of my head

7:30

here. If I remember right, I believe the

7:32

way this plane was laid out is it had some

7:35

area in the cabin set aside for cargo and some

7:37

set aside for passengers. And I believe

7:39

he went out to like the cargo type area and

7:41

was looking through there. And it's not like it's walled off or anything.

7:43

It's just got like cargo netting over it to like

7:45

hold it in place separate from the passenger. So he

7:48

was like in that area, kind of looking out

7:50

the window. It sounds like a very kind of, a

7:52

plane that's used for like multipurpose,

7:55

kind of get things done playing. Yeah, it

7:58

makes me think of the beginning of Indiana Jones.

7:59

in the Temple of Doom when Indiana Jones is in the

8:02

plane with the chicken and stuff. Yeah. You

8:04

know, that it's like the passengers who happen to be in a cargo

8:07

plane. It's not to that

8:09

extreme, but it makes me think of that. Yeah, because there won't

8:11

be chickens, there should be salmon.

8:13

Correct. The chicken of the

8:15

sea. No, wait, that's tuna.

8:18

So after the flight engineer returned to

8:20

the cockpit, Senior Flight Attendant Wendy Kroon

8:23

entered the cockpit to inform the captain

8:25

that

8:26

the vibration intensity was increasing.

8:28

And as she left the cockpit, she looked

8:30

out

8:31

the window just as the number four propeller

8:33

separated from the engine and struck the aircraft

8:35

tearing an eight foot gash in the belly of the fuselage

8:38

all the way into the cabin.

8:40

Oh my God. She said that

8:43

she could see straight through and

8:45

she could see the ocean beneath her feet

8:48

that it had torn. That is terrifying. Yeah,

8:50

a hole straight through the cabin.

8:52

She was scared to be standing there or

8:54

to step over it because there was nothing

8:56

between her and the ocean right there. It was a very

8:58

long hole. It was about eight feet long, but it wasn't

9:00

a very wide hole, but still any hole where

9:03

you can see the ocean from a plane is

9:05

you don't want to see that. That's so good. How

9:07

wide was it? I guess at

9:09

the widest. I don't think it ever said

9:12

here. I think at its widest, it was just

9:14

like a couple of inches. That's better than

9:16

what was in my head. Yeah, I

9:19

want to say it was like three to four inches or so. I don't

9:21

know if the reports gave the specific

9:23

amount. This is also an older incident, so the reports

9:25

are a little different, but I believe it wasn't

9:28

terribly big. Like it was small

9:30

enough to where she could step over. She

9:32

talks about how she could have stepped over, but she

9:34

was scared too. So she like went around and

9:36

crawled over the seats to

9:38

avoid stepping over the hole. So you

9:41

could step over it, but you wouldn't want to. Yeah,

9:43

but also I feel like you wouldn't want to step on it because you wouldn't want

9:45

to put unnecessary weight or pressure around

9:48

the hole. Right,

9:49

right. You don't know how weak it is.

9:52

The breach, you know, since it pierced the cabin

9:55

and depressurized it, the temperature

9:57

changed rapidly and this caused like a heavy.

9:59

fog to rapidly form

10:02

inside the plane. Ooh.

10:04

So it made everything foggy, like people couldn't

10:06

see, and it also, you know, starved

10:09

the cabin of oxygen. So all the oxygen, you know,

10:11

got depressurized. All the oxygen went out

10:13

from the plane and a cloud formed inside

10:15

the plane in place of oxygen. So

10:17

they had to use, you know, their emergency oxygen masks.

10:20

And the pilots had to fight to

10:22

even see the instruments because there was, the fog was

10:24

so dense in the plane.

10:26

So they had to kind of like try to get

10:28

the fog to, what

10:30

do you call it, dissipate before they

10:32

could really take stock of what was

10:34

going on and what the situation was. When

10:36

the fog cleared, Captain Gibson noticed

10:39

the aircraft was veering to the right out

10:41

towards the Bering Sea.

10:42

He tried to level the wings and pull the plane back

10:44

on course, but he described the controls

10:47

as being stuck in concrete. Like

10:49

he tried to, you know, bank to the

10:51

left, but he said they were just not moving.

10:53

They were, the controls were absolutely stuck.

10:56

And how much of that was because of the

10:58

propeller not being there and how much of it

11:00

was because of the hole in the

11:02

plane? At this point, the

11:05

crew doesn't know what's causing it.

11:07

All they know, you know, is that all of a sudden

11:09

the plane depressurized, there was fog, and now they're

11:11

in a right bank.

11:12

They do very quickly figure out that

11:14

something's wrong with the number four engine and you know,

11:16

the propeller is gone, but they just

11:18

can't turn it. Like the controls are just stuck,

11:21

like

11:21

not moving. And what's worse is

11:24

this lack of control prevented them from descending

11:26

to lower altitude with more oxygen.

11:28

Remember, they're still pretty high. They need

11:31

supplemental oxygen at that altitude. So

11:33

they were unable to manually maneuver the aircraft.

11:36

So the captain engaged the autopilot

11:39

and this kind of plane, this Lockheed Electra has

11:41

two sets of control cables

11:43

and the manual control cables had become jammed,

11:45

but the autopilot control cable still seem

11:47

to be working. Oh. And we've

11:50

talked about like control cables in the

11:52

past. Sometimes planes can have, you

11:54

know, big planes we think about, they have hydraulics to help

11:56

move all of the different, you know,

11:59

control surfaces.

11:59

Sometimes instead they'll have cables, like

12:02

steel cables and pulleys. In this case,

12:05

this plane had two different sets of cables,

12:07

one which was activated by the control column that

12:10

the pilots moved, and another set that was used by

12:12

the autopilot. So

12:13

they couldn't move theirs, it was just stuck like concrete,

12:16

but the autopilot's cables were still

12:18

working apparently. That's lucky.

12:21

And I guess again, going back to the always

12:23

having a backup, the fact that

12:25

there are two separate systems.

12:27

Yeah, really paid off here. Yeah.

12:30

Yeah, there's a lot of redundancy in

12:32

planes. Even back then, this is an old plane,

12:34

they had redundancy even back when

12:36

this was delivered in 1959. I

12:39

didn't even realize there was autopilot in 1959.

12:41

Yeah, I mean, it's not like what you think about nowadays.

12:44

Like nowadays a modern autopilot could conceivably

12:47

take you all the way to the runway and pretty much

12:49

land the plane. This autopilot is,

12:52

they're dealing with, it's a lot more rudimentary. It's

12:54

more like holding a heading,

12:57

hold an altitude,

12:58

maybe that's about it, nothing

13:01

too fancy.

13:02

So the autopilot managed to keep the aircraft

13:04

on a steady descending path, but

13:06

they still needed to decrease speed and

13:08

turning was near impossible. The throttle

13:10

controls were unresponsive and

13:13

we've talked about this before, there's only a limited supply

13:15

of emergency oxygen. The oxygen generators

13:17

aren't intended for prolonged use. They might last,

13:20

nowadays they last,

13:21

I don't know, 20 minutes or so,

13:24

maybe 15, 20 minutes. I don't

13:26

know what kind of oxygen generators

13:28

they used back then in 1983. So

13:31

eventually they do manage to reach 10,000 feet where

13:34

oxygen levels are more acceptable.

13:37

So they don't have to, they can check that off the list.

13:39

They don't have to worry about that anymore. They've got the

13:41

oxygen covered. So

13:44

the first officer, Lintner grabbed

13:46

his controls and tried to help the captain

13:48

overcome the jammed controls to try to

13:50

allow the aircraft to turn back to Cold Bay.

13:53

So they're working together, they were able to kind

13:55

of slowly, manually override

13:58

it and force it to make the turns they needed.

13:59

And like I mentioned, the autopilot

14:02

couldn't land the plane and

14:05

the manual controls kind of lacked precision.

14:08

So they don't know, they can only turn very

14:11

shallowly, you know, they don't have the fine

14:13

control they need to land the plane.

14:15

Is it really difficult even to make maneuvers

14:18

because it's like takes a lot of like

14:20

strength to push and pull and.

14:23

It takes a lot of strength and the banks are really

14:25

shallow. Like it can't turn very sharply.

14:27

Just like very slow

14:30

banking turns. So, you

14:32

know, every little thing takes a long time to

14:34

get done. So, you know, they start trying

14:36

to figure out what their options are. They thought, you

14:38

know,

14:39

maybe they should

14:40

ditch into the ocean in Crystal

14:42

Bay. But the conditions

14:44

were kind of volatile and they were on

14:46

the radio with a mechanic on the ground back

14:49

in Cold Bay. And he he says

14:51

he tried to convince them do not ditch in

14:53

the ocean. Like get back to the airport

14:55

because at the airport, you know, like, you know, and they

14:57

know they knew at the time, like there's emergency vehicles

15:00

there. You know, if people are hurt, they can be taken

15:02

care of right away. If they ditch in the ocean, you

15:04

know, they got to get boats out there, got to try to find

15:06

them. Yeah.

15:08

And it'd be cold, real cold because,

15:10

you know, namesake. Lucky for them,

15:12

it's June, but it is still a cold bay. Yeah,

15:15

exactly. Best salmon in the world. So

15:19

they considered what their options were. And

15:22

the runway at cold, you know, their engines,

15:25

they were going too fast. Their engines were stuck at a high

15:27

high thrust, high engine output, high

15:29

RPM.

15:30

So they didn't think they could land

15:32

at Cold Bay because the runway was too short. So

15:35

they were looked at other airports

15:37

in the area

15:38

and ultimately they decided they should,

15:40

you know, turn back and try to go all the way back

15:42

to Anchorage, which from where the

15:45

incident happened, it was they had to fly four

15:47

hours to get to Anchorage. Oh,

15:49

my goodness. So yeah, they

15:51

turn around and start making their way to Anchorage, which

15:54

it's not just also, it's not just a matter of flying the four

15:56

hours to Anchorage. It's also dangerous because

15:58

there's mountains in the area. So they

16:01

need to make sure they

16:03

can barely maneuver. They need to make sure they

16:05

have enough

16:06

maneuverability to clear the mountains

16:08

and get it all the way to Anchorage, where there's

16:11

a long enough runway for them to land at

16:13

at this high speed that they're going at.

16:15

And that was the best option is Anchorage

16:18

four hours away. That just seems crazy. Four

16:20

hours away. But I guess Alaska, there's not a lot of

16:22

airports, especially probably in what, 83?

16:25

Right. Like one that's got

16:27

a long runway and that has adequate,

16:29

you know, emergency services. Yeah,

16:32

this is scary.

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19:35

The engines, like I said, were stuck on full throttle.

19:38

Revolution Airways Flight 8 approached

19:40

Anchorage International and Reeve

19:43

engineer John Minton was brought in to relay

19:45

options to restore control to the aircraft. This is the person

19:47

that's on the ground that I told you they were talking to. It was John Minton

19:49

who was like, do not ditch it in the ocean.

19:52

Take it to Anchorage.

19:53

So, you know, they have four hours to

19:56

get to Anchorage. So they start trying to figure out

19:58

what can we do with this plane? They

20:01

disengaged the autopilot. That's

20:03

what John Minton wanted them to do, to disengage

20:05

the autopilot, to see what the plane was capable

20:07

of. And they disengaged the autopilot. In my head,

20:09

I know this is not really real. The

20:12

John Minton of this is the John Cusack

20:15

of Conair. Conair, that's

20:17

a movie

20:18

we've done a supplementary episode

20:20

on.

20:23

But maybe it's also because they're both Johns, but in

20:26

my head is the John Cusack of this story, of

20:28

this movie that we're making after we, after

20:31

with financing from our, our Alaskan fishing

20:34

cruises air, not cruises travels.

20:37

Anyway, go on. So

20:38

John Minton convinced them to, you know,

20:40

disengage the autopilot and the crew

20:43

noticed they had regained some manual control

20:45

and that both pilots working together could turn

20:47

the plane and pull the nose up for a landing.

20:50

So that's good. The downside is they

20:52

still had no throttle control. That's

20:54

crazy. It's just, that's why it makes it

20:56

seem like a movie. It's like, it's just stuck in

20:59

fast. Not just fast, it's like, it's stuck all

21:01

the way, right? Like full throttle. It's

21:03

like speed. Yeah. That's what

21:05

I was going to say. It's kind of like speed meets Conair. Yeah.

21:08

They try to brainstorm ideas for how

21:10

can they slow down as much as possible

21:13

to try to

21:14

make this landing. So they know the number

21:16

four engine. So if you're, if you're sitting in the plane,

21:18

the number one engine is the one furthest

21:21

to your left, furthest away from the fuselage. The

21:23

number two is on the left, but closer to the fuselage.

21:26

Number three is on the right, close to the fuselage. And

21:28

number four is on the right, but the one furthest away. So

21:30

that's the one that lost the propeller. The number

21:32

four, the one on the far right. So they decide,

21:35

hey,

21:36

maybe we can shut down another engine and

21:38

that'll slow us down. We can still fly with two engines.

21:41

We just have to shut down another engine.

21:43

And help maybe balance it out.

21:45

Yeah, right. So pop quiz hot shot.

21:48

You've lost number four engine. Which,

21:51

which engine do you think you would shut down?

21:53

Number one, number one left. Right.

21:55

That's what you think.

21:56

Wrong. Like for them, they're

21:58

talking to John Minton, who knows his stuff.

21:59

And he knows if you shut

22:02

down the number one engine the number one engine

22:04

runs the hydraulic system

22:06

So if you shut that down then you lose

22:08

all your hydraulics and you lose your brakes and you lose everything

22:10

So you can't shut number one down you have to shut

22:12

number two down So now asymmetric

22:15

a little little a little they're already dealing

22:18

with that.

22:18

It's yeah It's not too bad the number

22:21

one and number three are working. There's still

22:23

one on each side It's not terrible

22:25

and who's the main pilot who's what's the name

22:27

of the main pike or I guess in this case? It would be

22:29

probably Nicolas Cage. Okay There's

22:32

James Gibson

22:33

James Gibson. Okay, Nicolas Cage from

22:35

from Conair. They're coming into land

22:38

in Anchorage and They

22:40

are approaching at about 170 knots, which is 50 knots

22:42

faster than usual So

22:46

this is really really fast.

22:49

How much were they able to slow down by cutting

22:51

off one of the engines?

22:52

It was not a ton it dropped a little

22:55

the speed dropped a little bit There's no recording of it because

22:57

after also remember back then this an older plane the flight

22:59

data recorder was one of those metal foil Ones

23:01

there's not a lot of precision in it. So

23:03

they don't they don't know exactly they're

23:05

coming into land 50 knots faster than

23:08

usual lower the landing gear, but

23:10

the captain doesn't like it.

23:12

He calls for a go around me They raised what

23:14

they raised the landing gear and take off again. He

23:16

didn't like it What do you not like

23:19

about it?

23:19

Nicholas Cage being all Yeah,

23:21

I think he thought that they were still

23:24

coming in a little too high and too fast And he didn't think

23:26

they were gonna be able to stop in time Okay,

23:28

except the end to raise the stakes

23:30

in true Hollywood fashion at the end of the

23:33

runway. There's a bunch of houses Oh

23:35

my god, so if they run off

23:37

the end of the runway, they're gonna collide into a neighborhood

23:39

So they need to make sure no matter what

23:41

that they stop on the part on the runway So

23:44

and I bet that's where his daughter is

23:48

So captain Gibson says get my daughter No,

23:51

we're not gonna land this I'm gonna get the bunny to my

23:53

daughter That's the Chris

23:55

you're too good at that

23:58

They

23:58

go around and they make a second attempt

23:59

On this second attempt, Captain

24:02

Gibson decides to start his approach from

24:04

lower, from only 800 feet above the ground. That's

24:07

real low, right?

24:08

That's real low. That way, the

24:10

plane speed won't increase as it descends.

24:13

Because if you think about it, if you start descending, your speed

24:15

will increase. They can't pull the throttle

24:17

back. So if he starts low, he doesn't have to go

24:20

down very far, so there's not a bunch of speed generated.

24:22

Okay. He also realizes that

24:25

once they touch down,

24:27

that they're going to have to kill the engines as well. To

24:30

try to help slowing down, so that they don't go

24:32

off the end of the runway. They just like

24:34

turn off the ignition, I guess,

24:36

equivalently, because otherwise it's going to keep pushing

24:38

them, huh? Right.

24:40

But the problem is that

24:42

killing the engines will also

24:45

stop all of the lift on the wings. This

24:47

plane is designed so that the wind

24:50

being pushed back from the propellers goes over the wings

24:52

and helps provide the lift that it needs to fly.

24:54

So

24:55

if they kill the engines, there's

24:57

not going to be any more lift, and they're not going

24:59

to be able to take back off again. So if they

25:01

go through with this, and they touch down and they kill

25:04

the engines, they're committed to it. There is no going

25:06

around for a third time.

25:08

And the first go around, did they actually touch down?

25:10

No, no, they got low. Okay,

25:12

so it's yeah, man, this is great. So many stakes.

25:15

So much stakes. And also remember, like I said earlier,

25:18

if you turn off the number one engine, that

25:20

kills all the hydraulics. So then they'll lose

25:23

directional control, and they'll also lose the hydraulic

25:25

brakes to the plane. Oh my God.

25:27

So they can't do it. They basically, they

25:29

land and they just have to hope they landed good. Right.

25:32

So the plan is they're going to land. And

25:34

once they touch down, they're going to kill

25:36

the engines

25:37

and then deploy the emergency brakes. And

25:39

hopefully, you know, the plane will slow

25:41

down and they won't go off the end of the runway.

25:44

In our movie version, one of the hunters, John

25:46

Malkovich, has a feud with the

25:48

pilot.

25:49

He was trying to kill him.

25:53

Just just like a subplot.

25:56

Yeah, it's a subplot, but it still adds added

25:58

drama. Maybe they have a...

25:59

they have a feud going on. In the movie version,

26:02

the pilot and John Malkovich, his brother

26:05

flew in the war together. And John Malkovich

26:07

blames the pilot for his brother not coming back.

26:10

Yes, and so he, yeah, something like

26:12

that.

26:12

Okay, so they touch down and they

26:14

execute their plan. They kill the engines and

26:16

deploy the emergency brakes. But the

26:19

problem is under the pressure of the speed,

26:21

they were going, remember, they're going really fast. The brakes

26:23

burst into flames. Oh my God.

26:26

They land, the brakes catch

26:28

fire. One of the tires bursts because

26:30

of this. Oh my God. Where

26:33

are the brakes located? Like

26:34

in the plane? Like, are they near the tires or

26:37

like? Yeah, yeah.

26:38

Okay. So the fire is located down

26:41

by the tires. And the

26:43

plane ends up veering off the runway

26:45

into a ditch before coming to a stop at

26:47

the end of the runway. The fire response

26:49

team then covered the plane in foam

26:51

and miraculously all 15 occupants

26:53

of the aircraft exited the plane unharmed.

26:56

That is, that's crazy. Yeah,

26:58

absolutely crazy. The

27:01

first officer in an interview, he

27:03

says like, you know, they did all this,

27:05

they pulled the emergency brakes, they burst the brakes catch fire. And

27:07

he said he could see that ditch off the side of

27:09

the runway. And he just said like, well, we're going

27:11

in the ditch. Just

27:14

like kind of matter of- It's like a hate turn or anything. Right. Yeah.

27:17

This is like very matter of factly. This really

27:19

doesn't have anything to do with the

27:21

incident, but I thought that this was

27:23

really cool and speaks to the poise

27:25

that the captain has.

27:27

The plane's landed, everyone's fine. The

27:29

plane rolled off into the ditch. The captain

27:31

addressed the first officer and the flight engineer

27:34

before they

27:35

got off the plane and gave him one last order for the flight.

27:38

And he said that before they left the plane, they

27:40

all needed to put on their coats, their ties and their

27:42

hats when leaving the plane. Wow.

27:45

It's such a movie moment. Yeah.

27:48

He was like, it's to imagine like the three of them

27:50

walking away with their sunglasses on, looking cool

27:52

with the plane in the ditch behind them. Still

27:54

on fire. In

27:57

the movie version, in the movie version, they're putting it out

27:59

as they walk.

27:59

Yeah, that's like such

28:02

a cool moment to be like, yeah, we're gonna put

28:04

our stuff on, walk out of here. Wow.

28:07

Now for the investigation

28:09

side of things. This is all, that was all the incident.

28:12

So there are problems with this investigation.

28:15

There was a, the NTSB investigator was Ron

28:17

Schleid. He could not determine

28:19

a probable cause in this accident. Can you

28:21

guess why? Because the propeller

28:24

was never recovered. Right. It's in the ocean. The

28:27

propeller and the gearbox both

28:29

are lost at sea. There's no way

28:31

to find, like they're out over. Think about how

28:33

remote that part of the world is. And

28:36

how remote that sea is. There's no way

28:38

they were gonna find it. So

28:40

they couldn't find the propeller, couldn't find the gearbox.

28:42

Those are lost. So regardless,

28:44

the NTSB comes up with two probable causes. It

28:46

could have been a petite crack

28:49

in the structure or a gearbox

28:51

catastrophic failure. Could have caused

28:54

the separation of the propeller. And

28:56

these are both kind of, we've talked about

28:58

incidents similar to this. I don't think we ever talked about like a

29:00

gearbox catastrophic failure. But

29:02

I mean, we've talked about propellers coming off

29:04

and this type of accident in the past. So that's

29:07

kind of the thought process they're giving

29:09

this. And the Lockheed Electra had a history

29:12

of vibrations.

29:13

And since 1965, there had been four

29:15

cases of propeller loss on Lockheed Electra. It

29:18

was one of those things where they're like, yeah, it's probably

29:21

this. I think that it

29:23

wasn't super pressing because even by this time, it was

29:25

already an old plane. Not many people were flying it. I

29:28

think it was just

29:29

kind of a situation where that plane's

29:31

not going to be used much more. And

29:34

that specific plane, was it out of commission

29:36

or did they?

29:37

That's a good question, Chris. That

29:39

plane still flies to this day.

29:41

Oh, my God. Really? Yeah,

29:44

it was, you know,

29:45

this is kind of the end of the episode. I'll skip ahead. You

29:48

know, we said Reeves folded in 2000 and

29:50

the plane was unregistered in 2001

29:53

and was exported to Canada or was

29:55

used as a firefighting plane.

29:56

And it continued in this role

29:58

as of August 2020.

31:59

but they managed to cut a little bit into the metal,

32:02

regain a little bit of control.

32:04

Wow. Captain Gibson

32:06

was honored for this successful landing by

32:08

meeting with President Ronald Reagan in the White House.

32:11

Airline Pilots Association also honored Captain

32:13

Gibson, First Officer Gary Lintner, and

32:16

Flight Engineer Gerald Moose-Lauren later in 1983 with

32:19

its Superior Airmanship Award. Oh,

32:21

and I forgot to say, the thing I kind of

32:23

mentioned earlier at the beginning of the episode is, despite

32:26

the fact this was in 1983, there's video

32:28

footage of this plane coming in,

32:30

making the landing.

32:31

There's footage of the aborted

32:33

number one landing, and then the successful number two

32:35

landing. The local news found out what was going

32:38

on, and they sent a news crew out there. Remember, they had four hours

32:40

to get there. Yeah, yeah. So

32:42

then there is broadcast news footage

32:45

of this happening. Granted, it's not great quality,

32:47

but it exists, and I'll link it in our social media. Captain

32:49

Gibson actually flew with Reeve for

32:51

six more years before retiring,

32:54

and he eventually passed away in 2010. I think he

32:56

was like 81 at that time.

32:58

That's awesome. Just then like working together

33:00

and like...

33:01

Yeah, and the First Officer also kept flying. He retired

33:03

eventually in 1996,

33:05

and the interesting footnote about this incident

33:07

is the flight engineer Gerald Moose-Lauren.

33:10

Two years after the flight, he married

33:12

that flight attendant, Wendy Kroon. What?

33:15

Such a movie. The one who looked

33:17

out and saw the propeller and everything, Now

33:20

we got a love story in this thing, Gus.

33:23

So presumably, when he went out to look at the engines,

33:26

she was out there looking with him as well at the engines,

33:28

and then he went back into the cockpit, and then she

33:30

came in later, and they ended up getting married

33:33

two years after that.

33:34

This is such a movie. Who's... Wait,

33:36

so who's that? Should that be like Steve

33:38

Buscemi? Is that who... Oh,

33:40

that's not exactly a one-to-one. I know,

33:42

I'm just... We're going with real con-air casting.

33:45

Or Danny Trejo, we got Dave Chappelle,

33:48

or Ving Rain. Great cast

33:50

in this movie of ours. Great cast. Amazing cast,

33:53

yeah. So that's why you see there's a

33:55

lot going on here, even though I knew

33:57

this would be a shorter episode. It's a very straightforward...

33:59

incident, but I just think

34:01

the stakes were so high. It's so dramatic.

34:04

And there's so many like, yeah, interesting little things

34:06

going on within this incident. In

34:08

the movie version are John Cusack

34:11

was, you know how the investigation figured out what

34:13

was going on? Like after the fact they

34:15

figured it out while the plane's flying still in the air.

34:17

So that's like on the ground and

34:19

on the ground subplot just rides to round

34:22

it out.

34:22

And maybe, maybe, maybe John

34:25

Malkovich is responsible in some way. I don't know. You

34:27

know how they never found out the real reason

34:29

why the propeller fell off? The movie

34:31

version maybe is John Malkovich. Like by accident

34:34

or on purpose? Like he's walking by and

34:36

he just kind of like hits the propeller out

34:38

of frustration before the flight and it like loosens

34:41

it or something like that. Yeah.

34:43

Well, that's, that's like, we'll

34:45

figure that out when we get further along in the screenplay. Yeah.

34:47

We'll, we'll get to that like on the second treatment. All right. Well,

34:50

that's it for revolution

34:52

eight. I love this, this one. Everyone

34:54

lives, but it's like super high stakes

34:57

and so much drama going on. It's

34:59

got everything, including a very

35:01

happy ending for everyone, especially for the

35:03

flight engineer and the flight attendant. Yeah, that's

35:05

great. Yeah. Cause I don't forget to check out

35:07

social media at black box down pod, Facebook,

35:09

Instagram, Twitter. I will find a way

35:12

to link that video. I've watched that video. I'll,

35:14

I'll link it or, or post it on our socials.

35:16

That way you can see it as well. Do they have any just

35:18

pictures of

35:19

the plane afterwards? Like the, the gash

35:21

and the whole, and like the, and the plane.

35:24

When I was looking into it the other day, I don't

35:26

remember seeing any, I'll look

35:28

again and see if I can find some, if I can find some, that's definitely

35:31

the kind of thing I would post. I don't

35:33

know if there are any

35:35

though. I'll do some digging around. I'll see what I can

35:37

find. Chris. One last note before we go make

35:39

a bit of announcement. Let everyone know after

35:42

three amazing years of doing black

35:44

box down, we're deciding to sunset

35:46

the show. We're going to be putting the show

35:49

on hiatus here in a couple of months. We're

35:51

going to run through this current batch of episodes we're in

35:53

and our supplementary content. Our current

35:55

plan would have us ending

35:58

at the end of June, June 28th would be

35:59

when our last episode comes out. It's

36:02

always weird voluntarily choosing to end

36:04

something. I feel like we've done a lot of great

36:06

episodes, but I don't want to get to a point

36:08

where we're

36:10

rehashing stuff or not

36:12

doing ones that we're really passionate about. You

36:16

know what I mean, right? I want to make sure we're excited

36:18

and doing something new all the time. Well, you want to

36:20

end it the best way. Yeah. And

36:23

on hiatus is

36:25

the word where it's like, if there are things

36:28

that come up and we

36:29

want to talk about them and cover them, it's not

36:31

saying it's not. Yeah. Maybe coming

36:34

back at some point doing other things or special

36:36

things we want to talk about, but like, you know,

36:39

you want to end things the right way, not

36:41

just continue on forever. Yeah.

36:42

We have a huge list of a bunch of different

36:45

accidents and incidents we want to cover. And I

36:47

think even through the three years we've done, you know, I think

36:49

maybe we did half of them, but

36:52

I feel like we did the best half. You

36:54

know what I mean? Like we've been selective about all

36:56

of them. That's kind of why we did Revolutionate

36:59

this week. You know, it's not an episode,

37:01

I think,

37:02

that we would have done. We didn't do it initially

37:04

because it's kind of a short one, right? It's like very straightforward.

37:06

There is a lot of interesting elements to it, which

37:09

is why I really wanted to make sure we did this one before

37:11

we go on hiatus and before we put this

37:13

podcast to bed. And also we both individually,

37:16

you and I both also have other podcasts that we're

37:18

working on as well. Well, currently we have Tales

37:20

from the Stinky Dragon, which is released

37:23

weekly. It's a Dungeon of Dragons podcast. You can listen to

37:25

us there. But we also have other projects

37:27

that we want to work on that we're hoping

37:29

to announce and begin releasing

37:32

kind of in the near future as well. Yeah.

37:34

This is not our last episode. Like I said, we'll

37:36

be done June 28th, end of June. Just want to give you

37:38

a heads up that way you know that it's coming. I hope you're

37:40

excited for our upcoming episodes. Yeah. And

37:42

thank you to everyone who supports us and

37:45

hope you continue to support

37:47

us with our new projects. Yeah.

37:50

All right.

37:50

We'll be back next week. Like our screenplay

37:52

in our Alaskan Fish Tour. Yeah.

37:57

All right. Bye. Bye.

38:05

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